The Universal & Atomic Elements of Organization
A falsifiable scientific theory proposing that the same irreducible structures organize both thought and reality — from the quantum to the social scale.
O-Theory proposes that four irreducible structures — Distinctions, Systems, Relationships and Perspectives (DSRP) — form the universal grammar of organization. Rather than being merely useful ways of thinking, these structures are hypothesized to be the atomic elements from which every organized phenomenon emerges, whether in cognition, biology, physics, mathematics, society, or the cosmos.
| D | S | R | P |
| Distinctions | Systems | Relationships | Perspectives |
| Identity ↔ Other | Part ↔ Whole | Action ↔ Reaction | Point ↔ View |
| D := (i ↔ o) | S := (p ↔ w) | R := (a ↔ r) | P := (ṗ ↔ v) |
This is a living scientific evidence compendium: an open, continually evolving collection of independent empirical research, formal theory, mathematical proofs, cross-disciplinary analyses, applications, critiques, and proposed falsifications. Every entry is included because it supports, refines, challenges, or attempts to falsify the theory.
Scientific theories are strengthened not only by evidence that confirms their predictions, but also by surviving attempts to falsify them. This compendium brings both together: independent evidence from researchers who were not testing DSRP and proposed counterexamples evaluated against the formal theory.
One counterexample is enough to falsify O-Theory. Until then, the question remains: do the same four structures organize everything from quantum systems to human thought?
Independent convergence is one of the strongest forms of scientific evidence because researchers arrive at the same conclusion while investigating different questions for different reasons.
The number is not the point. Researchers in different fields, studying different questions with different methods, repeatedly arrived at the same structural predictions—almost always without testing DSRP or using its language.
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This compendium began as the peer-reviewed literature review “A Literature Review of the Universal and Atomic Elements of Complex Cognition,” published in the Journal of Systems Thinking with 109 studies. That paper is the peer-reviewed foundation. What you see here is its living, continuously updated version . New studies are checked before they are added, and the collection now holds and keeps growing. Open any card to see what the researchers found, why it bears on DSRP, and where the original review discusses it, the fuller account.
The collection is updated continuously, so the citation carries the date you consulted it rather than a study count — the count changes weekly, and putting it in the reference would make the same collection look like a different work to everyone who cites it. To cite a single claim or study, use its own address: every one has a permanent link.
This is the adversarial half of the compendium. Where the evidence track asks what converges on DSRP, this one asks what would end it: a single organized phenomenon whose structure needs a fifth pattern, a ninth element, or a fifth structural dynamic. It holds written up from candidates across territories, and resolutions — the general answers those cases settle against. Every case is published whether it held or failed, including the ones still open.
Cite this rather than the evidence collection when the point is what survived attack. The two are separate works with separate addresses: one asks what converges on the theory, the other asks what would end it, and a reference to the first does not support a claim about the second. Case and resolution numbers change when the record is revised, so cite a case by its own permanent link rather than by number.
This collection is meant to keep growing. Send us a study, paper, book or critique that bears on DSRP, whether it supports the theory or cuts against it, and we will read it and decide whether it belongs.
Authors Dhamala
Year 2015
Publisher Physics of Life Review
Discipline Neuroscience
Read it at the publisher 10.1016/j.plrev.2015.10.019
To explore the nature and importance of causality as a tool for gaining deeper understanding
A living brain is a complex dynamical system with many highly interconnected, interacting and self-organizing entities (neurons). The traditional notion of brain regions as information-processing units, with an input, a local processing capability and an output is too rigid and is not generally applicable throughout the brain. They offer that the nature of causality is not yet well known, and therefore application to a broader range of subjects and sciences could greatly increase the understanding of causality itself, and the utility for deeper understanding of any content.
That relationships exist in mind and nature is established, such that the new emphasis needs to be one increasing human awareness of them and the power in seeing the relationships we make as a tool for building meaning from new inputs.
Additional research by Dhamala, 2015, explored the nature and importance of causality as a tool for gaining deeper understanding. They argue that the neurological research on causality is important to science as a whole and should be applied more readily. “A living brain is a complex dynamical system with many highly interconnected, interacting and self-organizing entities (neurons). The traditional notion of brain regions as information-processing units, with an input, a local processing capability and an output is too rigid and is not generally applicable throughout the brain.” They offer that the nature of causality is not yet well known, and therefore application to a broader range of subjects and sciences could greatly increase the understanding of causality itself, and the utility for deeper understanding of any content. They also say that it is naturally hard to see the brain as a fluid entity rather than as a black box of inputs and outputs; because the latter is much simpler and easier to deal with when trying to solve problems and answer questions. The human brain is considered to be one of the most complex systems in the universe. “There are many mysteries to be solved including the patterns of causal relations among brain regions during perception, cognition and behavior.” That relationships exist in mind and nature is established, such that the new emphasis needs to be one increasing human awareness of them and the power in seeing the relationships we make as a tool for building meaning from new inputs.
Patterns it shows R
How to cite this Dhamala (2015). What is the nature of causality in the brain?. Physics of Life Review.